Intermittent Fasting

[hawkinsblake]

Hello,

Hey everyone just wanted to start a quick topic to see if anyone else has tired, failed, or is curious about Intermittent Fasting. In the case of intermittent fasting (IF), the "diet" actually refers to periods of fasting, meaning you are restricted to eating very little—or nothing at all—for periods of time lasting anywhere from 16-24 hours. It may sound a little crazy, but intermittent fasting has been suggested as an effective weight loss tool, with research supporting its ability to increase fat oxidation, reduce body weight, and accelerate fat loss. 

The central idea behind the implementation of intermittent fasting is to reduce overall calorie consumption, ideally resulting in weight loss. Typically, IF protocols will have the individual undergo a period of intentional severe calorie restriction (ranging from 0-25 percent of the individual's normal daily caloric intake) for a period of 16-24 hours. Following the restrictive phase, the individual returns to relatively normal energy intake for 8-24 hours, depending on which version of IF they are following.

I am doing the 16 hour fast where I consume nothing but water and a cup of black coffee in the mid morning to hold me over. Then I eat my normal range of calories for the day in an 8 hour window. For me this is from Noon to 8pm. I am on my 5th day so can't atest to being an expert but I am loving all the research I have found and was just curious to see if there is anyone else out there.

[DaleS]

Hi all,

 Until recently, I have been calorie restricting, eating 3 times a day. I find it very hard to calorie restrict with 3 meals a day. I stumbled upon EatStopEat written by Brad Pilon while investigating Adrenal fatigue, (don't ask how, I don't know) lol. I began reading everything I could find on IF and decided it could be just what I was looking for. I also read The 8 Hour Diet by David Zinczenko, I really liked the idea of an eating window. I started out with the 16/8 everyday IF and found it very easy to work with so, I then decided to try the 24 hour fast. First 24 hour fast was this past Friday/ Saturday (Super Bowl Sunday being the next day). I did get a little hungry before my break fast Saturday night but I did it. I really like the idea of EatStopEat, it's very laid back and easily adjusted to any schedule. Although it is a 24 hr. fast, you never go a whole day wtihout eating, and never do the fast two days in a row. The best part was on Super Bowl Sunday my food intake was within my calorie limit and I even had a couple of alcoholic drinks and never felt hungry at all.  I have lost 9 lbs. since January 1st and I think I will stick with it and see which works best for me in the long run.

[chealsieXs]

That's good that you've found something that is working for you, I love intermittent fasting and I always have Windows, I never eat before 13:00 and never after 8 so I have 7 hours in the day to eat. I restrict my meals aswell and iv found this has worked for me and it's good to be in a routine. I'm not saying at all that this is what is healthy for you or anyone else, but for me it just works. I try to have a 24 hour fast at least once a week only drinking fluids. If you want to add me or anything feel free I'm open to having a chat and getting to know people for motivation and support 🙂

[Shortsbysummer]

I am very interested in this, and didn't know it was a 'thing' until a few weeks ago. I typically eat very little from midnight until 4/5pm because of my job (less than 300 calories, mostly from coffee w/milk and sugar) and total lack of hunger, but then I'd eat foolishly from 6-11pm. Once I got back to the gym regularly I was able to stop most of the foolish night eating. I juice and blend. I'm a shorty, so my BMR is low. I'm a vegetarian but I don't eat enough fruit/veg!! Ironic. I'm picky and I hate salad, too much chewing involved, takes me an hour to eat a salad and I don't have that kind of time. That's mainly why I juice/blend my greens. I learned IF when I was channel surfing and some diet competition was talking about the Wild Diet. I'm glad to see people having success with it. It fits my lifestyle better than the 3 meals or 6 meals a day diets.

[divedragon]

A great companion of IF is Low Carb, High Fat diet.  I would look into it and can be done as a vegetarian.  Helps with the binge eating as fat give a feeling of fuller, longer.  I do a 20:4 program, tho lately, I've gone to more of a 16:8 as I was trying to change my window to afternoon vs night, but didn't have much luck with that.  I had also calorie restricted which slowed me down a bit, so I've been upping my calories for a while.  Starting today, I'm back on 20:4 program.  Good luck to you. 

[Dominique]

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@Shortsbysummer wrote:
I juice and blend. I'm a shorty, so my BMR is low. I'm a vegetarian but I don't eat enough fruit/veg!! Ironic. I'm picky and I hate salad, too much chewing involved, takes me an hour to eat a salad and I don't have that kind of time. That's mainly why I juice/blend my greens.

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I think you should reconsider your approach to eating: your anatomy cannot be that different from that of other people, and you should be able to chew your food like any youngster as soon as they get their first teeth. Drinking your calories is simply a bad idea and you’re missing out on a lot of good stuff (fiber, micronutrients, satiety etc.) by doing so. Let’s take veggies: there are lots of way to prepare them so that the chewing involved is minimal. And anyway, it’s not such a bad thing to eat a little bit slower rather than faster: you leave time for your brains to realize you’re full and not stuffed. You definitely can find "the kind of time" it takes to eat proper meals.

[SunsetRunner]

IF or Leangains is my preferred eating lifestyle for maintenance and building up muscle for the past several years. The majority of the time I didn’t follow any type of diet more than a few weeks but I managed to lose at least 40 lbs of body fat. Most likely I lost a lot more fat, since I have 31 lbs more muscle than the average 6’1’ male for my age (based on BodPod 2 years ago). 192 lbs of lean mass.

It’s not to say I’m healthy. I’m still over weight (or obese according to BMI), and I developed type 2 diabetes a couple of years ago which I now control with diet, fasting and exercise.

[hawkinsblake]

Daddy78250,

How did you manage to gain that much muscle mass? I have gotten down to a good size and have been struggling to put on some lean muscle. Would love to know your secret!

[I-train-hard]

I don’t know how he did it but there is one secret to put just muscle and a lot of without gaining fat.

Steroids. B4 anyone would use it, please read the side effect that fallows. 

I have never used it, I know people who had, got great body but depression and other mental side effect followed.

[Dominique]

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@Daddy78250 wrote:

I have 31 lbs more muscle than the average 6’1’ male for my age (based on BodPod 2 years ago). 192 lbs of lean mass.

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This is new to me (that there are statistics telling how much muscle the average man a certain size and a certain age has): so where do I find out how much muscle a 55-year old male, 174 cm (5’7, for non-metric people) of height, has, so that I would know whether I’m under- or over-muscular?

I guess it also depends on the part of the world these figures come from: in North America, you would be comparing yourself against a general population that is 60% overweight or obese; you would get entirely different results in, say, India.

[SunsetRunner]

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@hawkinsblake wrote:

Daddy78250,

How did you manage to gain that much muscle mass? I have gotten down to a good size and have been struggling to put on some lean muscle. Would love to know your secret!

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Lifting heavy, overeating, gaining weight and lots of recovery - constantly, for 14 years. So average 2-3 lbs per year? I'm assuming the lean mass would include muscle and increased bone density. I think most of my gains went to my back, butt and legs (squats, deadlifts, leg presses). 

No drugs involved. Pretty much 14 years of bulking - not very healthy. These days I'm concentrating on losing the extra body fat, while maintaining as much of my hard earned muscle.

[SunsetRunner]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@Daddy78250 wrote:

I have 31 lbs more muscle than the average 6’1’ male for my age (based on BodPod 2 years ago). 192 lbs of lean mass.

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This is new to me (that there are statistics telling how much muscle the average man a certain size and a certain age has): so where do I find out how much muscle a 55-year old male, 174 cm (5’7, for non-metric people) of height, has, so that I would know whether I’m under- or over-muscular?

I guess it also depends on the part of the world these figures come from: in North America, you would be comparing yourself against a general population that is 60% overweight or obese; you would get entirely different results in, say, India.

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I believe the averages are based on BMI. The BMI calculates typical body fat (lean mass) of the average person, based on age, gender and height. I don't know, if there are BMI charts for different parts of the world or ethnicities.

[Dominique]

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@Daddy78250 wrote:

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I believe the averages are based on BMI. The BMI calculates typical body fat (lean mass) of the average person, based on age, gender and height. I don't know, if there are BMI charts for different parts of the world or ethnicities.

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BMI is just a ratio between height and weight, it says nothing about muscle mass and fat. Very muscular guys tend to be put in the overweight (or even obese) range according to BMI, even if lean. So BMI is mostly suitable for the general population, not for athletes.

[SunsetRunner]

By the way, I got into Leangains (Martin Berkhan via Lyle McDonald) after losing 30 pounds of body fat from several years of bulking. That was about 5 years ago. I didn't have much success in reducing my overall weight but the gains I made at the gym the shift in my body composition during that time were amazing. For me personally, Leangains is the perfect maintence lifestyle.

[SunsetRunner]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@Daddy78250 wrote:

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I believe the averages are based on BMI. The BMI calculates typical body fat (lean mass) of the average person, based on age, gender and height. I don't know, if there are BMI charts for different parts of the world or ethnicities.

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BMI is just a ratio between height and weight, it says nothing about muscle mass and fat. Very muscular guys tend to be put in the overweight (or even obese) range according to BMI, even if lean. So BMI is mostly suitable for the general population, not for athletes.

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I don't know what your intent is. Are you seriously curious or just looking for an argument? Seems like you're trolling.

The BMI used in my case is a ratio of body fat to height and weight for adults, it's adjusted by age and gender. So if the BMI ratio is 25% of body fat then remaining 75% will be lean mass. Lean mass is not broken down to muscle, water, bone, last nights steak. I'm assuming its a U.S. BMI. My individual body composition results were compared to those in the general population (BMI). My results from the test, not BMI, were used to adjust my diet and exercise.

[Corney]

I agree with Dominique, BMI is just a ratio between height and weight and has no regard to age or gender.

It has nothing to do with fat or lean body mass or hydration.  It is more suitable to the general population, since a very muscular individual would probably register  as over weight, because muscle weighs more than fat.

[divedragon]

I had huge success to get down to 189, but then stalled.  I've also slacked off on exercise and been less disiplined on the fasting schedule.  Part of that was an attempt to re-feed my body to amp up my metabolism and then start again.  I've started back this week with daily exercise consisting of 30 min of cardio and 30 minutes of weight training.  I'm also switching from my 20:4 regiment to every other day fasting.  Today is my second day of fasting.  Yesterday was a feeding day and I ate 3 meals, but only consume 1938 calories. 

My goal is to eat around 2K per day on feeding days and I really want to get down to zero on fasting days.  Monday, I did have about 650 calories.  I'm going to stop my the store on the way back to hotel and see if I can get some marrow bones to boil up to have bone broth "for dinner".

The odd thing is that today I'm really tired.  My body feels like its gone through a really long and tough workout and all the energy is gone.  Hoping its just a body adjustment phenom.

[Dominique]

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@divedragon wrote:

I'm also switching from my 20:4 regiment to every other day fasting.

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If you every other day fasting is 0 calories / 24 hours and only water, this sounds excessive to me. With 0 calorie days alternating with days when you eat at maintenance, you have a 50% deficit at the weekly level. That’s a lot.

Brad Pilon ("Eat-Stop-Eat") recommands 1-2 days of 24-hour fasting per week. This is perfectly sustainable in my own experience (1 day per week being easy, 2 days per week tougher). I definitely wouldn’t do it every second day myself.

Unless I didn’t get your "every other day fasting" right.

[SunsetRunner]

Your IF style is very different than mine and seems more appropriate for major cutting - rather than building muscle. Lifting weights daily on a major deficit won’t allow your body the time or energy to recover, even if you’re not working on the same body parts daily.

I do the 16/8 style IF, 16 hours fast with 8 hour eating window, on a daily basis. I’ll eat at maintenance calories during that time. On recovery days I’ll eat at a slight calorie deficit, or at maintenance, and on workout days I’ll eat at a slight surplus. I lift weights 3-4 times a week (rotating split body workout), and light to moderate cardio on most days (20-45 minutes). I always skipped a day between lift days, sometimes 2 (I recover slowly).

[Dominique]

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@Daddy78250 wrote:

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 The BMI used in my case is a ratio of body fat to height and weight for adults, it's adjusted by age and gender. So if the BMI ratio is 25% of body fat then remaining 75% will be lean mass. Lean mass is not broken down to muscle, water, bone, last nights steak. I'm assuming its a U.S. BMI. My individual body composition results were compared to those in the general population (BMI). My results from the test, not BMI, were used to adjust my diet and exercise.

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No, I’m not trolling. It seems your are confusing BMI (Body Mass Index) with body fat % (percentage of fat out of your total body mass). BMI is not a percentage, it’s just an arbitrary number that is used to define various ranges, like underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese. Again, BMI has nothing to do with body fat %, although people with a very low BMI (< 20) will tend to carry less fat that people with a very high BMI (> 30%).

Two persons with the same weight and same height will have the same BMI, but may carry different amounts of fat. This is typically the case if one is a male and the other one a female.

[ElsieB.]

I have been doing interitent fasting most days and I find it works for me.I have never been one to eat first thing in the morning anyways. I have this brain thing which makes me think if I eat breakfast I have ruined the rest of the day as far as eating goes. So I try to eat from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. only